Episode 285, "And and or edition"

Discord: http://discord.worldofwarcast.com

Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/starmike

Twitch: http://twitch.tv/starmiketv

Ren:

Success on BunofSteel and “the wolf in sheep’s clothing”

Fisherfriends fun - though if you have a choice, don’t do melee

Soloing normal dungeons

Mike:

T3 chest!

BfA beta walkthrough

Green proto-drake

Primal Fire

i1000 chest

This Week in WoW

Pet Battles

Children's Week starts Monday 30th - through Monday 7th

Volunteer Guard Day Mini-event Saturday the 28th

Next week: Burning Crusade Timewalking

Q&A

Ion spent a lot of time covering the change to GCD

They still want feedback wrt how the class feels

Some abilities such as Charge, Infernal Strike and Heroic Leap for warriors and DIsengage for hunters being taken off GCD

In Final Fantasy XIV, everything is on GCD, but the GCD is 2.5s, but can be reduced with gear.

They want people to make decisions - A or B instead of A and B.

Azerite Power being renamed Artifact Power

There will be a way to respec traits.

Talking about adding in that functionality later, and a return to the old respeccing a la vanilla (paying an increasing scale for respecs, with decay)

BfA should be more alt-friendly.

Heart of Azeroth -- universal for all specs instead of having to develop AP in multiple weapons

New BGs called Epic Battlegrounds

Large battlegrounds are being split off

Removing blacklisting from Battlegrounds

Strand of the Ancients is being removed in BfA (not sure if temporary or permanent)

Ashran is being temporarily retired.

No plans to deactivate racials in rated PvP

All loot will be personal loot

Will still be flagged going into an enemy major city, whether you are in War Mode or not

More BfA stuff

Battle Pets in beta:

Some nerfs incoming:

Bone Serpent: swapped positions of Call Darkness and Lift-Off

Practical upshot: This is a huge nerf. Call of Darkness now shares the slot with Nocturnal Strike. Call of Darkness blinds all pets, and Nocturnal Strike always hits if the target is Blinded. In combination, this is huge. Having to choose between them now significantly reduces its power. (Workaround: do the Frostfur Rat with Call Darkness and Sneak Attack)

Crow and Gilnean Raven: -200 power, +200 speed

Cyclone: Damage changed from 7 to 3-7

Haunt: returns the pet at 50% health instead of 100

Teroclaw Hatchling: Dodge and Nature's Ward will now occupy the same tier as will Hawk Eye and Ravage.

Practical upshot: Slot 2 will now put Dodge (4 round cooldown) and Nature's Ward (5 round heal) on same tier, basically making you choose between damage mitigation or pet heal.

Pet Battle World Quests incoming and will scale to the highest pet on your team (NOT apply to wild pets outside world quests)

New pet battle mechanics:

Random weather effects

More heals that have increased effects on pet's health

Aura effects that heal your pet or damages enemy pet based on the last hit dealt

From the Discord:

N&A finishers: Congrats to Buffysummers - Human Windwalker Monk for finishing N&A with 23,055 gold 4/1/43

Shoutout ot Dodoobrawn-Bladefist - nice fishing with you! Hello to Mrs. Dodoobrawn as well.

Question: Why do you still need a WoD garrison? Is it worth going back if you have a character who skipped it?